I spent twenty years undercover in CIA running operations against terrorist groups and WMD smuggling networks, carrying a gun on my ankle and trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. Little did I know that I was in the minors. If you want to run real high speed, undercover ops, you need to go to New York City, and go to work for the Human Rights Commission.

Earlier this year an Italian restaurant in New York wanted to hire a new hostess, so they did the unthinkable. They placed an ad. In the ad they said they wanted to hire hostess.

That’s when the Human Rights Commission moved in. The restaurant was contacted by two individuals in response to the ad. One person was male. The other, female. Clever.

The qualifications of both individuals were reviewed. Neither was judged acceptable. Neither was hired. It did not matter. The trap was sprung. The Human Rights Commission swooped in, revealing that both of the respondents were undercover testers employed by the commission to ferret out just such nefarious behavior.

A formal complaint was filed. A judgment was issued, and a $5000 fine was assessed. According to the Human Rights Commission’s interpretation of New York City law, it is actually illegal to ever specify a gender preference in hiring employees.

Lest you think that this is some aberration let me add some additional facts. This is not by any stretch of the imagination the first case of this kind of action by the Human Rights Commission nor is there any indication that they do not support it.

In fact, if you go on the Human Rights Commission’s website you will see that they chronicle their accomplishments in extraordinary detail month by month and that hardly a month goes by without them noting the success they have had in routing out cases of employers seeking to hire individuals of a particular gender for a position.

Another page on the website actually goes into considerable detail in discussing the highly refined tester trade-craft the Commission uses in responding to such cases. Very high speed. Surprised we never thought of that at the CIA.

Alright. Enough with being snide. Let me ask a serious question. Why?

Why in the name of God is it illegal in New York City to want to hire a person of a particular gender for a particular job? Aren’t there are all kinds of situations in which it would be completely reasonable for an employer to want to hire a woman or a man specifically?

If I am a woman running a massage parlor and spa, catering to females, wouldn’t it be natural that I would want to hire a female to do my clients nails, give them massages and do their hair? Would it be surprising that if I did not that certain clients no longer wanted to be seen in a state of undress by someone of the opposite sex?

If I am a woman and am the sole proprietor of an accounting firm, and I want to hire an assistant, who will sit in the same office with me for hours a day and sometime until late at night, am I really unreasonable for not wanting to employ a man in this capacity? What if my religion frowns on me spending time alone with men who are not members of my family or my husband?

If I am a male doctor who runs a practice focused on erectile dysfunction and other embarrassing male sexual disorders, is it inconceivable that my patients might not find it comfortable to discuss their issues with female nurses or nurse practitioners? Should the government really be in the business of decreeing that I must employ women in such a capacity?

Fifty plus years ago we confronted a true evil in this country, the legacy of slavery. For hundreds of years this nation had failed to confront both de jure and de facto segregation, and our decision to face America’s original sin was long overdue.

In the many years since, we have continued this fight against inequality, and we have expanded the war to include attacks on all sorts of very real, very dangerous discriminatory behaviors. This is as it should be. I should be able to buy a home without regard for my race or creed. I should be able to gain admittance to college without regard to my gender or sexual orientation. I should be considered for promotion based on merit rather than on my political persuasion.

The territory into which we are now moving, however, is that of the absurd. What organizations like the New York Human Rights Commission are now doing is not defending basic human rights, but attempting to legislate some sort of mind boggling, neutered, homogenized vision of American society.

They are not defending basic human rights. They are shoving their own conception of how we should live, what we should believe, and how we should think down our throats — using the power of the state to do so.

What began as a federal effort to ensure that we all had the freedom to live our lives as we see fit has now turned inside out and become something entirely different. The government is no longer freeing us, it is controlling us and legislating how we will live, speak, and behave.

The New York City Human Rights Commission has an annual budget of over $6 million, but claims that it is grossly underfunded and can’t begin to address its workload without a substantial increase in spending. I have a better idea. Before the Commission requests an increase in the amount of money it receives, how about it posts its own job ad. “Help Wanted: Common Sense”.

Charles S. Faddis, President of Orion Strategic Services, LLC, is a former CIA operations officer with 20 years of experience in the conduct of intelligence operations in the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe. He is the senior intelligence editor for AND Magazine and a contributor to a wide variety of counterterrorism and homeland security journals. His nonfiction works include "Operation Hotel California," a history of the actions of his team inside Iraq from 2002 to 2003, "Willful Neglect," an examination of homeland security, and "Beyond Repair," an argument for intelligence reform. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.